RomanPunks is a retrofuturistic, cyberpunk derivative world-building project inspired by fine art, history and the cryptopunk movement.
A total of 1,000 RomanPunk characters have been frozen in time and minted as Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs) on the Ethereum, WAX, Polygon and Algorand blockchains.
RomanPunk characters are comprised of commoners and famous individuals based on Roman history, art history and pop culture.
The basis for RomanPunk lore and backstories is exhaustively researched by history/sci-fi buff and co-founder, Punktavian.
All images are drawn by hand by woman artist and co-founder, Cleopunktra, without the aid of AI or generative tools.
RomanPunks came into existence through early minting on OpenSea, promoting on Twitter and building a Discord community through giveaways and engagement. The idea of a cyberpunk-derivative ‘RomanPunk’ theme was in our heads for years, but it was the success of the Cryptopunks that became the catalyst for project conception and launch.
After a hard working first 60 days spent networking and attracting new collectors to RomanPunks, our community had begun to flourish and sales increased. We began to offer our collectors an opportunity to battle their NFTs in a tournament bracket powered by dice rolls.
Encouraged by the tight knit community and the carbon-neutral blockchain with lightning fast and low cost transactions, we launched 'romanpunksio' collection on WAX Blockchain as the first step to expand the backstories of our RomanPunk characters and the baseline for future development of a card game.
RomanPunks integrated with Chainlink Labs to utilize VRF (Verified Randomness Function) to host a giveaway raffle for our holders. We developed a smart contract on Ethereum which guarantees true random number selection on chain and can be used for a wide range of functions that require random selection.
After much anticipation in the community, we released our first WAX NFT card 'pack' through the Neftyblocks platform, which sold out in less than a week.
We launched our Twitch channel and begun building an audience by offering numerous giveaways of WAX NFTs from our collection, as well as giving participants a chance to win RomanPunk ETH NFT airdrops for taking top spot at the end of the 'season'.
As firm believers in a metaverse future and land owners in The Sandbox, we undertook to build the RomanPunk Colosseum on 1x1 land and entered our experience "Gladiator Bloodsport" into a GameJam contest. We will continue to build the Colosseum into a PVP arena and social hub once The Sandbox offers creators the ability to do so.
Thanks to the user friendly tools offered by NeftyBlocks, we launched a comprehensive blending system on WAX, allowing our collectors to blend the common NFTs they earn in our Discord RPG up into Legendary famous NFTs through the use of blending 'coins' that can also be earned on the Discord as reward for helping to promote the RomanPunks project.
We launched the VX collection on Polygon. Each owner of an ETH NFT gets their voxel equivalent airdropped to them, and these NFTs can be redeemed for official NFTs on The Sandbox Marketplace once available.
All 1,000 original, unique 1:1 RomanPunk characters hand drawn by Cleopunktra and minted on OpenSea.
The RomanPunk WAX NFT Trading Card Fighter Pack Series II consists of 3 NFTs randomly selected from over 236 characters.
Upcoming plans for RomanPunks include:
Below is a comprehensive and searchable directory of all 1,000 RomanPunk Characters.
Born in 134 BC in Ctesiphon, Azafrooz is a soldier in the army of Mithridates II of Parthia who, along with his brother Vorn accompanied the envoy Orobazus to parley with the Roman Sulla. Having failed to negotiate a truce, Azafrooz returned home in shame, while Vorn was enslaved as a gladiator.
Born 410 AD in Aquae Sulis, Edric is a settler and Briton militia soldier battling a waning Roman influence and the encroaching Anglo-Saxon invaders. Through an interdimensional portal his tribe discovered at Stonehenge, he recruits allies from the future, leveraging their advanced technology and wisdom to combat extraterrestrial alien forces suspected of aiding his adversaries.
Born 129 BC in Sinope, Laodice is the sister of Mithridates the Great. To avoid being forced to marry her brother, she fled to an alternate dimension where she conspired with the Roman general Pompey to defeat and exact revenge on Mithridates.
Born in 185 AD in Fife, Osgar was raised to hate the Romans and fought stubbornly against the invasion of Septimius Severus in 208 AD, using future technology obtained from dimension hopping druids to help push the invaders back to Hadrian’s Wall.
Born 2114 AD in Rome, not much is known about Galla other than she is a dimension hopping cyber-mercenary who dismantles empires through time targeted assassinations.
Born 201 BC in Petra, Gamila was a servant of at the Temple of Dushara. One day she spoke a strange incantation which opened an interdimensional portal that transported her to a 28th century AD alternate dimension where she was forced to fight as a gladiator.
Born in 2251 AD in Nyssa, Zoron is a prodigal equestrian and degenerate gambler who lost his entire ancestral fortune on cyberchariot races. After failing to repay a loan, a shylock took his eyes as collateral and replaced them with a Giordi visor, which is programmed to shut off if he misses any future payments.
Born 299 BC in Perinthus, Epa fought with a Celtic war band that invaded Asia and founded Galatia. Epa’s mind and body were often possessed by a 33rd century AD version of herself who plugged in to experience the glory of defeating the Seleucid king Antiochus I Soter in the Battle of Elephants.
Born in 182 AD in Rome, Herta is the cold blooded guard captain for Emperor Caracalla who plotted his assassination by sowing discontent amongst the troops and turning a blind eye while a soldier stabbed him to death as he was urinating.
Born 170 BC in Damascus, Daro is a bastard son of Antiochus IV and a time-traveling geisha from the 22nd century. Now, Daro travels across dimensions in search of his biological mother.
Born 61 AD in Fife, Mac was captured by Agricola’s troops at the Battle of Mons Graupius and dispatched to Mauritania by Emperor Domitian as a slave farmer. While toiling in the fields, he discovered an interdimensional portal which he used to escape to an alternate 20th century in which the Roman Empire remains unvanquished. Now he operates a chariot harvester on a commercial wheat farm.
Born 2141 AD in Neo-Carthage, Zorin serves as the cunning vizier to the city’s governor, a corrupt puppet of the Roman Empire suzerain. A lover of vanity, gladiatorial combat and a master of subterfuge with a network of spies, he wields a rare tool, the Septivox, granting him insight into alternate dimensions. Meanwhile, beneath the city’s opulent surface, a cloned Hannibal Barca leads an underground rebellion, poised to dismantle the governor’s fragile rule, propped up by deceit and manipulation.
Born 3973 AD on an unknown planet in an unknown star system from an unknown galaxy, Ziggus emerged in the 2nd century AD to a Roman world ravaged by vampires and zombies and helped inspire the people to valour through poetry and song.
Born in 2162 AD in Petra, Zalika hails from an ancient Nabataean lineage renowned for its mastery of trade, finance, and subterfuge. As a plenipotentiary representative of the Crimson Oasis Bank, she holds immense influence within the Red Sands Syndicate, a financial empire that discreetly controls the flow of wealth and power across continents. In a world dominated by RomAngloGallic rulers with ancient minds reanimated in synthetic bodies, Zalika’s current mission is to finance the clone of Hannibal Barca in his revolutionary campaign against Neo-Carthage’s corrupt governor and the cyborg Emperor Caligula.
Born in 355 AD on the shores of the Black Sea, Hilda Cixilo was raised in blood by warrior parents who trained them in battles against the Huns. After collecting 80 heads in the Battle of Adrianople, Hilda went on to distinguish herself in Mastaura as an undefeated gladiator.
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romanpunks@protonmail.ch
Registered in Ontario, Canada
